


Prove it

by mittamoo



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Baking, Gen, Internalized Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14280348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mittamoo/pseuds/mittamoo
Summary: Its a stupid suggestion, baking. After all how could baking help him? Aaron can't help but find himself trying it out just this once though.





	Prove it

**Author's Note:**

> The Baking au that literally no one asked for!

It happens while he’s in the kitchen and, okay, maybe he isn’t exactly in a good but he’s minding his own business. At least he was trying to until Pearl had decided that she had to make herself and Paddy some tea in their kitchen. He had wanted to keep to himself and ignore her while she was there but Pear wasn’t having any of it, clearly, because she just keeps talking at him. He’s only been responding to her with vague grunts in the hopes that she’ll leave him alone which seems to be working by the sound of Pearl’s huffing.

“Teenagers these days are so rude. Rude and angry!” she says, pointing her finger at him “You know what you should try young man? Baking. Nothing better than kneading dough when you’re worked up”

He can’t help but scoff at her as she pushes back into the clinic. Silly old bat, why would he want to bake? So he pushes her words to the back of his mind and continues to make his lunch in peace. Finally.

He doesn’t think about Pearl’s words anymore for around a week. Not until about a week later when he’s pacing around the kitchen and rocking on his heels, anger bubbling under his skin in a way that makes him restless and sends an itch through his fingers. Usually this is around the time he’d start looking for a fight, or finding something, anything to hit and take away the anger like acid eating him from the inside out.

That’s when he remembers Pearl’s words from before ‘Nothing better than kneading dough’ she’d said and most of him scoffs and pushes the idea away, _baking._ He’d rather die than be caught doing something like that. It’s gay and Aaron’s not like that, he _can’t_ be like that. Even so, a smaller part of him is willing to try anything to keep from feeling like this. After what feeling like hours but in all probability was only a few moments of fighting with himself, it’s surprisingly the smaller part of him that wins out. Which is why he finds himself flicking through a recipe book to find the simplest recipe he could with the ingredients he had, bread.

The recipe isn’t hard to understand he thinks as he combines the dry ingredients with the wet ones. He wasn’t expecting to find the process of measuring out the ingredients themselves to be soothing but he finds that he likes the repetitive nature in weighing, combining and stirring. It’s not enough, but he can feel it taking the edge off his agitation. Maybe there’s something in all this after all.

Strangely he finds himself looking forward to being able to knead the dough he’s created. The recipe instructing him to be almost aggressive in his technique. The feel of dough between his fingers as he pulls and stretches it before slamming it back down onto the counter with a satisfying thwack is good. He works the dough until his muscles begin to ache, it’s a good kind of ache, one that won’t make Paddy’s eyes dark in disappointment and his insides burn in shame. When it comes time to leave the bread to prove he’s still not quite calm enough to relax but he doesn’t quite feel like he’s about to explode. He lets himself return to gently rocking on his heels while he puts the radio on and waits to move on.

Knocking back the dough is nice in the same way he finds kneading nice, punching the dough to knock out any large bubbles is cathartic and gives him more time to work out even more of his anger on something he can’t hurt. When it is time for him to put the bread in the oven to bake he finds that he’s almost entirely calm he’s not sure he’ll ever truly be able to rid himself of the anger just under his skin but right now he feels pretty close to it. Not only that, he finds that he feels proud of himself too, he made this he’d for once in his life created something instead of ruining all that’s around him.  It smells good when it’s finished baking. And if he leave the finished loaf at Pearl’s desk for her to find early the next morning, well nobody else needed to know about that did they?

He thinks that that will be the end of it, until he walks into the pub at his lunch break the next day to find Paddy and Pearl sat at one of the tables getting some lunch of their own, he doesn’t think much of it until he hears Pearl speaking, loudly.

“I just don’t know where it came from” he hears her insist “I just came in this morning and there it was!”

“Maybe you’ve got a secret admirer then Pearl” Paddy snorts and Aaron has to swallow down a laugh of his own at the thought of it.

“Maybe I do!” she agrees with him excitedly “Well whoever made it, its ever so good I do hope my admirer leaves some more”

Aaron can feel his ears burn at the praise, he likes knowing that he’s at least done something well for once. After he finishes his lunch and gets up to go back to work, he catches Pearl’s eye and she smiles at him while he leaves. Maybe, Aaron decided that he’s going to try baking again sometime.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I think I might continue this so please let me know what you think!


End file.
